Show whose work you are using.
Cite ideas, evidence, data, methods, images and exact wording that came from another source.
Project practice · from first paper to final reference list
Save the source as you read.
Referencing lets a reader see where a claim came from, judge the evidence and find the source. Use the annotated example below, then practise with the EndNote or Zotero starter library.
The useful rule: if a reasonable reader could ask
“How do you know?” and your answer comes from a source, cite it at the claim.
Not every sentence needs a citation. Your degree handbook
and required style remain decisive.
The central habit
One source. One clean record. One useful note.
A manager stores and formats references. You still decide whether a claim needs evidence, whether the evidence is trustworthy and whether the imported record is correct.
Before choosing software: find the required style in your handbook or module guidance, and appraise the paper before relying on it. A manager formats the information it has; it does not guarantee that the source is sound or the result follows your rules.
By the end you can
- decide what needs a citation and place it clearly;
- import and use the practice library in EndNote or Zotero;
- save, verify, note and retrieve sources while reading;
- audit a document and its reference list before submission.
What it is for
Referencing makes the evidence trail visible.
Help the reader find it.
An in-text citation points to a full reference containing enough accurate detail to recover the source.
Let the evidence be checked.
A traceable source allows the reader to examine its methods, context, limitations and fit with your claim.
Place your argument in a conversation.
Good referencing shows agreement, tension, development and gaps; it does more than prove that you have read widely.
Citation: the short pointer in the text. Reference: the full source record in the reference list. A bibliography may include wider reading as well, but only when your required conventions say so. Check the handbook rather than guessing.
1 · Decide
Does this claim need a citation?
No. Not every assertion needs a reference.
Cite every non-obvious factual claim or borrowed contribution.
Cite it
- a fact, number, date or claim about what happened;
- a definition, theory, framework or argument from someone else;
- a quotation, paraphrase, dataset, method, table, figure or image;
- a claim that the literature agrees, conflicts or leaves a gap.
Usually no new citation
- a roadmap such as “This section compares three explanations”;
- a transparent account of what you did or found in this project;
- your clearly signposted judgement based on evidence just cited;
- genuine, stable and uncontested common knowledge.
When unsure: could a reader reasonably challenge the claim or need the source to verify it? If yes, cite. Put the citation immediately after the sentence or clause it supports.
2 · See it
One paragraph, annotated claim by claim.
Worked author–date example
Social isolation, loneliness and later-life health
Blue text is a citation. Numbered notes explain its job.
Social isolation and loneliness are related but not interchangeable. Social isolation describes a relatively objective scarcity of contact, whereas loneliness is the subjective experience that relationships are insufficient (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2020)1. A person may therefore have few contacts without feeling lonely, or feel lonely while surrounded by other people2.
Across prospective studies, Holt-Lunstad et al. (2015)3 reported that social isolation, loneliness and living alone were associated with 29%, 26% and 32% higher likelihoods of mortality, respectively. These observational findings support careful attention to social connection, but they do not prove that reducing loneliness alone will prevent death (Holt-Lunstad et al., 2015; Steptoe et al., 2013)4.
- Cite · borrowed definition. The source is named at the end of the exact definition it supports.
- No new citation · same idea. This sentence explains the cited distinction; mechanically repeating the same citation would add clutter.
- Cite · narrative form. The authors form part of the sentence. The figures still belong to their study.
- Cite · synthesis and limit. Two sources support a measured conclusion; “observational” prevents a causal overclaim.
Follow the short citations to the full references
Each source appears once in the reference list, with enough detail for the reader to find it.
- Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B., Baker, M., Harris, T. and Stephenson, D. (2015) ‘Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for mortality: a meta-analytic review’, Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), pp. 227–237. doi: 10.1177/1745691614568352.
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2020) Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25663.
- Steptoe, A., Shankar, A., Demakakos, P. and Wardle, J. (2013) ‘Social isolation, loneliness, and all-cause mortality in older men and women’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(15), pp. 5797–5801. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1219686110.
Practise the whole workflow
Use the same four real records in EndNote or Zotero.
Import into a new practice library, verify each record, then rebuild the visible citations in a copy of the Word example.
Complete pack · ZIP
Get everything
EndNote, Zotero, the annotated Word example and import instructions.
Worked example · DOCX
Read the annotations
Five editable pages with the full model text, reference list and practice task.
EndNote import · ENW
Build the EndNote library
Four checked records, tags and teaching notes. Import using the EndNote Import filter.
Zotero import · BIB
Build the Zotero collection
Four checked records, tags and teaching notes in a portable BibTeX file.
These are portable import libraries, not fragile native databases. They contain metadata and notes, not copyrighted PDFs. The Word citations are visible teaching examples; replace them with live fields from your chosen manager in a practice copy.
3 · Capture
Capture first; read, write and cite from the same record.
- Find the source. Prefer the original article, book, report, dataset or guidance rather than citing somebody else’s summary of it.
- Save it immediately. Import it into the project collection while the database, catalogue or publisher page is still open. Attach the lawful full text or a stable link.
- Verify the record. Check the item type, authors, title, year, journal or publisher, volume, issue, pages and DOI or URL against the source itself.
- Read and leave a note. Record the source’s main claim, method or evidence, limitations, relevance to your question and page numbers for quotations or precise ideas.
- Cite while drafting. Insert citations through the manager. If output is wrong, correct the library record or style and refresh; do not repeatedly repair the same error by hand.
The rule that prevents most referencing crises: if a source influences your thinking, save and verify it before you close it. A browser tab, download folder or half-remembered title is not a reference system.
4 · Choose one manager
Use EndNote or Zotero for the whole project.
Both can store records and files, organise reading, insert citations and build a reference list. Choose the tool you can support reliably, then learn its capture, word-processor, sync and backup workflow. Mixing two managers in one document creates unnecessary complexity.
EndNote
The natural choice when you are at Newcastle University, want the institutionally supported route and plan to use EndNote’s Cite While You Write workflow with Word.
Open the Newcastle University Library EndNote guide ↗Zotero
A strong choice when you want free, open-source software, one-click browser capture and a portable personal library with clear official documentation.
Open Zotero’s official quick-start guide ↗Do not choose by citation-style count. Both tools offer many styles. Choose by institutional support, writing software, collaboration needs and the workflow you will actually maintain.
5 · Organise
Organise for retrieval, not decoration.
Keep one dependable record of each source.
Use project groups or collections to bring sources together. Do not create duplicate copies just because one paper belongs in several chapters or themes.
Organise by work with a purpose.
Useful collections might be Project inbox, Core evidence, Methods, Background and To discuss. Add a chapter collection only when it helps drafting.
Use a small controlled vocabulary.
Tag stable concepts such as method, population or evidence role. Use a few workflow tags such as to read, read and cite; avoid dozens of near-synonyms.
Record judgement, not just highlights.
A useful note says what the source contributes, how it was produced, what limits it and exactly where it may enter your argument.
- One-sentence contribution
- What is the most important thing this source adds to your question?
- Evidence and method
- What data, design, material or reasoning produces the claim?
- Strengths and limits
- What makes the source useful, and what should stop the claim travelling too far?
- Relationship to other sources
- What does it confirm, challenge, refine or leave unresolved?
- Use in the project
- Background, method, comparison, interpretation, limitation or another named job.
- Traceable detail
- Page or section for quotations and close paraphrases; date accessed when the required style needs it.
Write notes in your own words and clearly mark copied text as a direct quotation with its page number. This prevents a pasted phrase from later being mistaken for your own prose.
Maintain
Small checks keep the library trustworthy.
Check the metadata, keep the lawful text or stable link and record why the source matters.
Mark it read and leave a short judgement with page locators, not a pile of unprocessed highlights.
Merge real duplicates, file useful items and resolve incomplete records while they are still familiar.
Follow the manager’s backup guidance and test the word-processor integration in a copy.
Protect against both loss and bad changes.
Sync keeps devices aligned; it may also propagate deletion or corruption. Keep a separate, dated backup made by the method your manager recommends.
Correct the library record once.
If an author, date or title is wrong in the document, fix the underlying item and refresh the citations so every use stays consistent.
6 · Audit
A clean library helps; the final judgement is still yours.
- Support claims at the point they are made. Make clear which sentence or clause a citation supports; do not leave a bundle of references floating at the end of a long paragraph.
- Represent the source fairly. Read enough context to avoid making the authors claim more, less or something different from what they actually report.
- Cite what you consulted. Prefer the original source. If you must rely on a secondary account, make that route explicit under the required style.
- Reconcile both directions. Every in-text citation should have the required full reference, and every item in the reference list should be cited unless the rules require a bibliography.
- Inspect the rendered output. Check names, dates, capitalisation, italics, punctuation, ordering, page ranges, identifiers and line wrapping against your official style guidance.
- Keep the live citation fields until the end. Make a copy before converting or unlinking fields, and only do so when submission requirements genuinely demand it.
A polished reference is not evidence that the source exists or supports the claim. Never cite a record produced by a database, generator or AI tool until you have opened and checked the source itself.
Continue the recommended route See how a study becomes data → Connect the question and evidence to design, population, variables, bias and confounding.Go deeper · official referencing and software help
Use these authoritative guides when you need the exact steps for your manager or a fuller explanation of Newcastle University’s referencing expectations.
Use the complete EndNote guide
Follow Newcastle’s supported route for access, building a library, importing references and using Cite While You Write.
Open the EndNote guideUnderstand the rules behind the tool
Review why and how to reference, then use the style required by your degree or module.
Open Newcastle’s referencing guidanceUse collections and tags deliberately
Learn how one item can sit in several collections, how tags support retrieval and how to find duplicates or unfiled items.
Open Zotero’s organising guideInsert and edit live citations
Use the word-processor plugin to add citations, select a style, refresh the document and generate the reference list.
Open Zotero’s citation guideSet up sync and a separate backup
Understand the difference between synchronising library data and protecting a recoverable copy of the full library.
Open Zotero’s sync guidance